*gui_x11.txt* For Vim version 5.3. Last modification: 1998 Aug 17 VIM REFERENCE MANUAL by Bram Moolenaar Vim's Graphical User Interface *gui-x11* *GUI-X11* 1. Starting the X11 GUI |gui-x11-start| 2. GUI Resources |gui-resources| 3. Shell Commands |gui-pty| 4. Various |gui-x11-various| 5. Compiling |gui-x11-compiling| Other relevant documentation: |gui.txt| For generic items of the GUI. {Vi does not have any of these commands} ============================================================================== 1. Starting the X11 GUI *gui-x11-start* Then you can run the GUI version of Vim in either of these ways: gvim [options] [files...] vim -g [options] [files...] So if you call the executable "gvim", or make "gvim" a link to the executable, then the GUI version will automatically be used. Additional characters may be added after "gvim", for example "gvim-5". You may also start up the GUI from within the terminal version by using one of these commands: :gui [+cmd] [-f] [files...] *:gu* *:gui* :gvim [+cmd] [-f] [files...] *:gv* *:gvim* *gui-fork* When the GUI is started, it does a fork() and exits the current process. When gvim was started from a shell this makes the shell accept further commands. If you don't want this (e.g. when using gvim for a mail program that waits for gvim to exit), start gvim with "gvim -f", "vim -gf" or use ":gui -f". Don't use "vim -fg", because "-fg" specifies the foreground color. If you want the GUI to run in the foreground always, include the 'f' flag in 'guioptions'. |-f|. ============================================================================== 2. GUI Resources *gui-resources* If using the Motif or Athena version of the GUI (not for the Win32 version), a number of X resources are available. You should use Vim's class "Vim" when setting these. They are as follows: Resource name Meaning ~ reverseVideo Boolean: should reverse video be used? background Color of background. foreground Color of normal text. scrollBackground Color of trough portion of scrollbars. scrollForeground Color of slider and arrow portions of scrollbars. menuBackground Color of menu backgrounds. menuForeground Color of menu foregrounds. font Name of font used for normal text. boldFont Name of font used for bold text. italicFont Name of font used for italic text. boldItalicFont Name of font used for bold, italic text. geometry Initial geometry to use for gvim's window (default is same size as terminal that started it). scrollbarWidth Thickness of scrollbars. menuHeight Height of the menu bar. borderWidth Thickness of border around text area. A special font for italic, bold, and italic-bold text will only be used if the user has specified one via a resource. No attempt is made to guess what fonts should be used for these based on the normal text font at the moment. Note that the colors can also be set with the ":highlight" command, using the "Normal", "Menu" and "Scrollbar" groups. *font-sizes* Note: All fonts must be of the same size!!! If you don't do this, text will disappear or mess up the display. Vim does not check the font sizes. It's the size in screen pixels that must be the same. Note that some fonts that have the same point size don't have the same pixel size! Additionally, the positioning of the fonts must be the same (ascent and descent). You can check this with "xlsfonts -l ". If any of these things are also set with Vim commands, eg with ":set guifont=Screen15", then this will override the X resources (currently 'guifont' is the only option that is supported). Here is an example of what you might put in your ~/.Xdefaults file: > Vim*useSchemes: all > Vim*sgiMode: true > Vim*useEnhancedFSB: true > Vim.foreground: Black > Vim.background: Wheat > Vim*menuBar*font: 7x13 The first three of these are standard resources on Silicon Graphics machines which make Motif applications look even better, highly recommended! Don't use "Vim*geometry" in the defaults. This will break the menus. Use "Vim.geometry" instead. If you get an error message "Cannot allocate colormap entry for "gray60", try adding this to your Vim resources (change the colors to your liking): > Vim*scrollBackground: Black > Vim*scrollForeground: Blue The resources can also be set with arguments to vim: argument meaning ~ *-gui* -display Run vim on *-display* -iconic Start vim iconified *-iconic* -background Use for the background *-background* -bg idem *-bg* -foreground Use for normal text *-foreground* -fg idem *-fg* -ul idem *-ul* -font Use for normal text *-font* -fn idem *-fn* -boldfont Use for bold text *-boldfont* -italicfont Use for italic text *-italicfont* -geometry Use for initial geometry *-geometry* -geom idem *-geom* -borderwidth Use a border width of *-borderwidth* -bw idem *-bw* *-scrollbarwidth* -scrollbarwidth Use a scrollbar width of -sw idem *-sw* -menuheight Use a menu bar height of *-menuheight* -mh idem *-mh* -reverse Use reverse video *-reverse* -rv idem *-rv* +reverse Don't use reverse video *-+reverse* +rv idem *-+rv* -xrm Set the specified resource *-xrm* Note about reverse video: Vim checks that the result is actually a light text on a dark background. The reason is that some X11 versions swap the colors, and some don't. These two examples will both give yellow text on a blue background: gvim -fg Yellow -bg Blue -reverse gvim -bg Yellow -fg Blue -reverse ============================================================================== 3. Shell Commands *gui-pty* WARNING: Executing an external command from the GUI will not always work. "normal" commands like "ls", "grep" and "make" mostly work fine. Commands that require an intelligent terminal like "less" and "ispell" won't work. Some may even hang and need to be killed from another terminal. So be careful! There are two ways to do the I/O with a shell command: Pipes and a pseudo-tty. The default is to use a pseudo-tty. This should work best on most systems. Unfortunately, the implementation of the pseudo-tty is different on every Unix system. And some systems require root permission. To avoid running into problems with a pseudo-tty when you least expect it, test it when not editing a file. Be prepared to "kill" the started command or Vim. Commands like ":r !cat" may hang! If using a pseudo-tty does not work for you, reset the 'guipty' option: > :set noguipty Using a pipe should work on any Unix system, but there are disadvantages: - Some shell commands will notice that a pipe is being used and behave differently. E.g., ":!ls" will list the files in one column. - The ":sh" command won't show a prompt, although it will sort of work. - When using ":make" it's not possible to interrupt with a CTRL-C. Typehead while the external command is running is often lost. This happens both with a pipe and a pseudo-tty. This is a known problem, but it seems it can't be fixed (or at least, it's very difficult). *gui-pty-erase* When your erase character is wrong for an external command, you should fix this in your "~/.cshrc" file, or whatever file your shell uses for initializations. For example, when you want to use backspace to delete characters, but hitting backspaces produces "^H" instead, try adding this to your "~/.cshrc": > stty erase ^H The ^H is a real CTRL-H, type it as CTRL-V CTRL-H. ============================================================================== 4. Various *gui-x11-various* *gui-x11-printing* The "File/Print" menu simply sends the current buffer to "lpr". No options or whatever. If you want something else, you can define your own print command. For example: > :10amenu File.Print :w !lpr -Php3 > :10vmenu File.Print :w !lpr -Php3 *X11-icon* Vim uses a black&white icon by default. A colored Vim icon is included as $VIM/vim32x32.xpm. Unfortunately, how you should install it depends on your window manager. When you use this, remove the 'i' flag from 'guioptions', to remove the black&white icon: > :set guioptions-=i If you use one of the fvwm* family of window managers simply add this line to your .fvwm2rc configuration file: > Style "vim" Icon vim32x32.xpm Make sure the icon file's location is consistent with the window manager's IconPath statement. Either modify the IconPath from within your .fvwm2rc or drop the icon into one the pre-defined directories: > IconPath /usr/X11R6/include/X11/pixmaps:/usr/X11R6/include/X11/bitmaps For CDE "dtwm" (a derivative of Motif) add this line in the .Xdefaults: > Dtwm*Vim*iconImage: /usr/local/share/vim/vim32x32.xpm For "mwm" (Motif window manager) the line would be: > Mwm*Vim*iconImage: /usr/local/share/vim/vim32x32.xpm ============================================================================== 5. Compiling *gui-x11-compiling* You need at least Motif version 1.2 and/or X11R5. Motif 2.0 and X11R6 are OK. Motif 1.1 and X11R4 might work, no guarantee (there may be a few problems, but you might make it compile and run with a bit of work, please send me the patches if you do). The newest releases of Lesstif have been reported to mostly work (e.g., tear-off menus don't work). By default the Makefile tries to compile Vim with the GUI. When the Motif files cannot be found the Athena files will be searched for. When both of them cannot be found, the GUI will be disabled. When you have the Motif or Athena files in a directory where configure doesn't look, edit the Makefile to enter the names of the directories. Search for "GUI_INC_LOC" for an example to set the Motif directories, "CONF_OPT_X" for Athena. Don't try to mix files from different Motif, Athena and X11 versions. This will cause problems. For example, using header files for X11R5 with a library for X11R6 probably doesn't work (although the linking won't give an error message, Vim will crash later). The Athena version uses the Xaw widget set by default. If you have the 3D version, you might want to link with Xaw3d instead. This will make the menus look a bit better. Edit the Makefile and look for "XAW_LIB". The scrollbars will remain the same, because Vim has its own, which are already 3D (in fact, they look more like Motif). vim:tw=78:ts=8:sw=4